Survey: Apple Is The Biggest Influence On The Videogame Industry

When 1000 games industry professionals are surveyed by the London Games Conference to discover who they feel is the most influential person in gaming today, you might expect Shigeru Miyamoto or Gabe Newell to top the list. However, it appears that a whopping 46% voted Steve Jobs into a top five position, implying that Apple have had a greater effect on the gaming industry than any other company. The Apple iPhone also romped ahead in terms of gaming products with a 53% vote - trouncing the Wii, original PlayStation and Steam.

Can this be right? Yes, probably. The rise of apps and mobile/tablet gaming has created an entirely new and massively profitable ecosystem that's open to everyone from indie studios to AAA titans alike, and there's nowhere to go but up. We've rounded up the results below if you're interested, and we'd love to get your take on it.

I beg that someone tell me how Steve Jobs has done anything to influence a game. Motion controls on the iPhone? Oh, wait Nintendo had that on the Wii... Clearly people have no clue and are mourning one sorry excuse of a human being. RE his daughter.

Completey nuts, Apple and it's platform have been terrible for anything other than casual gaming. Eating into profit margins and restricting content claiming to be innovative without any innovation whatsoever.

How he can be (and his company, Zuckerberg too) compared to people who have literally decades (and in some cases dedicated their whole lives) of industry experience is sheer madness.

Ask this question outside the UK and I think you'd would get very different answers (in fact, I imagine a lot of people would ask wtf Apple and Jobs are on the list).